Point-of-Care Follow-Up With Primary Care After Emergency Department Discharge

Overview

The purpose of this trial is to determine whether setting up a follow-up appointment for patients who received treatment and were discharged from the emergency department increases their compliance with the follow-up appointment. We are enrolling patients who need a follow-up visit, have health insurance but report do not have a primary care doctor. Patients are randomized to one of three treatment groups: (1) assistance setting up a follow-up appointment by a research assistant using ZocDoc; (2) ZocDoc information given to the subject to set up follow-up appointment by him/herself; or (3) usual discharge instructions by ED staff. Subjects are phoned approximately 2 weeks after the ED visit and asked whether they completed a follow-up visit, satisfaction with their ED visit, satisfaction with their follow-up visit, and additional ED treatment and recovery.

This is a randomized controlled trial involving adult emergency department (ED) patients who need a follow-up visit as defined by the ED provider (importance of follow-up rated as 5 or greater on a 0 to 10 scale). There is software available called ZocDoc that provides a user the ability to identify primary care providers who have open appointments and will take the person's health insurance (in network and outside of network) and list the doctors based on their proximity to the person in need. We are testing whether booking appointments for ED patients using ZocDoc vs. giving patients the information to use ZocDoc themselves vs. standard discharge instructions given by ED staff (i.e. you should follow-up with a primary care doctor) affects compliance with self-reported follow-up visits. We are enrolling patients while they are in the ED, completed a short baseline interview and then another interview with them over the telephone approximately two weeks after the index ED visit. The follow-up interview asks subjects whether they have completed a follow-up visit, satisfaction with the ED visit and the primary care visit, any other additional ED treatment and extent of recovery from the problem that brought them to the ED the first time.